The number of new applications for unemployment benefits dropped down to 203,000 last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday, indicating that few workers are losing jobs due to payroll reductions.
Initial claims for jobless benefits have been extraordinarily low for most of this year, a testament to the strength of the labor market and the resilience of the economy. Even a jump in oil prices following the start of the fighting with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has not caused employers to reconsider their payroll levels.
Last week’s figure is extremely low by historical standards. Excluding instances earlier this year, claims have only been this low in 3.5 percent of all the weeks of data going back to 1967. There were no instances of jobless claims being this low between 1970 and 2018.
Those figures are all the more extraordinary because the workforce is much larger than it was in the 1960s. Since 1969, the U.S. labor force has more than doubled. Adjusted simply for labor-force growth, 203,000 claims today would be equivalent to only about 97,000 claims in 1969. Conversely, a 1969 reading of 203,000 would be equivalent to roughly 425,000 claims today.
Jobless claims can be volatile week-to-week. Many economists look to the four-week moving average of claims for a better view of the underlying health of the labor market. The
4-week moving average was 205,500, an increase of 1,250 from the previous week’s revised average. Since 1967, this measure has only been this low or lower prior to this year 3.5 percent of the time—and it was never this low between 1970 and 2018.
The three-month average is slightly higher, at 211,500. This is also extremely low by historical standards. Excluding this year, there have only been 9 episodes of three-month moving averages this low. Only around 5 percent of the time has the three-month average been this low. The three-month measure last crossed today’s threshold in January 1970 and then did not return until September 2018.
The 2026 year-to-date average is 210,824 initial claims per week. That makes it the third lowest ever for claims through the first 34 weeks of the year. The previous two were in 1968 and 1969.
Continuing claims totaled just under 1.78 million in the week through Aug. 15, falling by 18,000 from a week earlier. The data on continuing claims lag the initial-claims data by a week.
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